Fatka's Farm Forecast: Thin Margins, Pricey Protein, and a Super El Niño on the Horizon
By Michelle Pelletier Marshall, Women in Agribusiness Media (October 13, 2026)
Last month's 2026 Women in Agribusiness Summit in New Orleans brought insights from across the ag value chain, including legislative and regulatory updates, the commodities outlook, food trends reshaping agriculture, farmer perspectives and challenges, and key professional development discussions.
Here are takeaways from keynote speaker Jacqui Fatka, lead analyst for CoBank, who opened the 15th annual Summit with an ag markets outlook. In her succinct, condensed presentation of the facts, six key highlights emerged:
Income is slipping, and pressure is real. Net farm income is forecast at $158.4 billion in 2026, down 2.6% from 2025, even though it sits above the 2005–2024 average. Higher production costs (+44% since 2018), debt (+50%) and interest rates (+63%) keep margins thin.
Government aid is propping up the numbers. With newly requested aid, government payments could reach $58.2 billion in 2026, about 33% of projected farm income.
Asset values are the safety net. Land and machinery values would need to fall about 20%, alongside rising debt, to push farms toward insolvency. That has not happened since the 1980s farm crisis.
GLP-1 drugs are reshaping demand. Users spend less on groceries overall but will pay more for protein, supporting beef and other meat sales.
Export markets are shifting. China has fallen from the top U.S. ag customer to fifth, Mexico and Canada are now the top two, and China aims to cut soybean imports 25% by 2030.
Biofuels are a bright spot, but new demand is needed. Mandates and tax credits help now; maritime fuel, exports and E15 are the growth levers.
WIA's Media Partner, Successful Farming, covered the event and this session in particular, with more on asset values (especially how to avoid a repeat of the 1980s) and rising protein demand driven by GLP-1 drugs. "We now have a really significant portion of our consumers buying at higher prices. They want quality and they're willing to pay for it," Fatka said, as reported by Successful Farming. "There is no escaping the impact of GLPs." Read the full story by Executive Editor Lisa Foust Prater, who also moderated the Risk Management panel at the Summit.
Fatka urged the audience, which included representatives from farm to fork, to be aware of compressed margins for everyone along the supply chain. She also advised watching trade and demographic shifts, which are bound to change buying patterns further and will likely open new pathways for biofuels.
Weather, she noted, cannot be discounted. Heavy rain or severe drought could drastically cut crop production in several countries. In an article by Pam Caraway of Farm Progress, another WIA Media Partner, Fatka said weather variables could result in 20% fewer harvestable days in the U.S. this year. The stakes are even higher with the expected Super El Niño, which has not yet been named because it is so extreme that it "doesn't even fit on the same axis" as past events, according to climate scientist Daniel Swain.
On government aid, Fatka highlighted that payments to farmers under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could account for about 30% of farm income in 2026. The concern, she said, is that government payments push up farmland lease prices: for every $1 in commodity payments, lease prices rise by 38 cents.
